UPDATED: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Ships Friday, Aug. 28!

The Apple Store is back up, and as expected it's brought the next generation of Mac OS X, 10.6 Snow Leopard, with it! Pre-ordering is now available for delivery by this Friday, August 28 in the US (international stores may only ship by 8/28).

At $29 for single user and $49 for a 5-user family pack, for Mac users, this is likely a no-brainer. We're not sure what, if any, goodies will be in there specific to the iPhone of iPod touch, but with OpenCL (use GPU as CPU), Grand Central Dispatch (packetize processor tasks like network traffic), built-in Exchange ActiveSync support, QuickTime X, and a whole heap of refinements under the hood (hello, Cocoa Finder!), it'll be worth it anyway. Find out more at Apple.com.

For everyone else, worry not, Windows 7 is still on track for October 22, Ubuntu Karmic Koala is set for October 29, and if you rock a different distro... well, you'll likely have an update at some point too!

I'm new to the Macbook scene. I'm assuming I should perform a clean install, is Mac OSX technologically advanced enough to perform a upgrade without leaving bugs and problems behind. I'll google it in a minute, but can someone point me to a good reference I can use for upgrading or changing my OS from 10.5 to 10.6?
Thanks

@Jersagfast, @Rod
Not entirely true. The last big point upgrade, Leopard (10.5.0) had a couple issues, including one with audio that, IIRC, was not fully corrected for a couple of point revisions. That said, 10.6.0 testers have been very positive to date, and, while I would not install 10.6.0 on a mission critical OSX server, I have already pre-ordered and will apply it to my Macbook Pro as soon as it arrives.

@CJ
We're not paying for an update, not in the sense that you are saying. We're not paying to have "bug fixes" and "patches." This is an enhancement to the (already) great OS. Apple sends out patch updates, etc just like Microsoft does.

@CJ:
Please don't get me started on Windows ROFL. been there, done that. I have real work and need a RELIABLE solution.
If you really have faith in Windows 7, good for you, but I'm not dropping ~$500 (full edition home basic/premium/business/Ultimate/Super Ultimate?/etc... lol) for that POS.
Please tell me what does Win7 offers over Vista? improvements to the stability and speed? DirectX improvements? new Windows Media Player? lol. yea yiu must be overdosed to get that for ~$300 (upgrade ed).
I mean really? some people still argue for Windows? I guess its better getting stuck to something dull and inefficient than learning something new that works.

lol wow Bolt makes a good point but CJ is right this software should be free over the internet as an update. I gotta older Mac Pro from 2004 that runs on Power PC not Intel chips, u think it will work.

At Chuck: thank u Chuck for hearing what I have to say. My point is as I go into the store and I buy my pc I know that that is the only time I'll have to spend money on it. Not even mentioning the staggering difference in hardware performance versus price when comparing macs vs pc. I know that when I pay that $1000 that is the only money that is comming out of my pocket. I am not responsible for incopetent work lazy apple engineers who do not properly test their software. These ppl should not expect the public to pay for their mistakes and don't get me wrong they are mistakes that should have been remedied as software release. U ppl should sue.
Please don't fall victim to snappy catch frases thought up by Apple marketing department. By buying apple ur falling pray to the myth of a reliable os that doesn't crash when in fact said os cannot do much more than ms word and look pretty.